The guy is 79 years old and still kicking it, jet-setting across the world, giving lectures, and pushing the government to commit to manned missions to Mars in the coming decade. Buzz is a beast in every way. He wrote the thesis for his Doctorate of Science at MIT on "Line-of-sight guidance techniques for manned orbital rendezvous", an unheard-of topic at the time, and then used that knowledge to dock Gemini 12 manually -- a feat mission control didn't think was possible -- when the computer system failed.He is also a big proponent of world-wide cooperation and, according to my sources, wanted to include a line in his speech last night asking for Iran to be included in future US space missions, but was convinced against it.
Buzz Aldrin is a friend of my boss and so he included all the interns on a conference call he made to him today. I know Buss is a big proponent of sending manned missions to Mars so I asked him when he thought that would be possible and what the most difficult part of it would be. The guy then spends the next twenty minutes (while my boss is in a hurry to get to his next meeting) explaining every single space mission that would have to take place between now and the mid 2030s before NASA would have the acquired skill and technology to make safe return from Mars possible. He then spent the next twenty minutes after that explaining the complicated physics involved in building and sustaining the shuttle vehicle using math and terminology so far over my head, they might have well crashed into the moon.
ReplyDeleteThis MIT Ph.D is still sharp as a tack.